Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Twelve steps to haven
- 2 Dropping in (it) at SENECA'S
- 3 You can get used to anything
- 4 The long and winding mode
- 5 Booking us in
- 6 Now and then; here and there: at SCIPIO'S
- 7 Bound for VATIA'S
- 8 Knocking the self: genuflexion, villafication, VATIA'S
- 9 The world of the bath-house: SCIPIO'S
- 10 The appliance of science: SCIPIO'S
- 11 Shafts of light: transplantation and transfiguration
- 12 Still olive, still SCIPIO'S
- Appendix 1 Here to stay Places and persons named in the Epistulae Morales
- Appendix 2 From: Letter 86 To: A Dying Light in Corduba
- Bibliography
- Indexes
4 - The long and winding mode
Books 14–20+
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Twelve steps to haven
- 2 Dropping in (it) at SENECA'S
- 3 You can get used to anything
- 4 The long and winding mode
- 5 Booking us in
- 6 Now and then; here and there: at SCIPIO'S
- 7 Bound for VATIA'S
- 8 Knocking the self: genuflexion, villafication, VATIA'S
- 9 The world of the bath-house: SCIPIO'S
- 10 The appliance of science: SCIPIO'S
- 11 Shafts of light: transplantation and transfiguration
- 12 Still olive, still SCIPIO'S
- Appendix 1 Here to stay Places and persons named in the Epistulae Morales
- Appendix 2 From: Letter 86 To: A Dying Light in Corduba
- Bibliography
- Indexes
Summary
The undistributed sequence bracketing Books 11–13 will prove to showcase only the one crucial locale, scipio's Liternum, twinned with a vivid but unreferenced ‘sub-Catonesque’ journey (86 ∼ 87). After this pinnacle of narration, the collection will feature just three significantly rounded vistas.
First, the imperial colony of Lyons, born only a human lifespan before, burns to the ground. Empathize with its patriot, our [Aebutius] Liberalis – but be stoical (91: it does happen). Play the raconteur, and make a moralizing difference to, and with, this public topos of imperial Roman annals.
Second comes the bare notice of a second manor of seneca's. He bolts by carriage to an estate of his ‘at Nomentum’. Away from fever, and for that reason from the City [of Rome]: from his wife, his wife, his brother, his health, his (Senecan) old age, his wife, his fear. From Pompeia Paulina. From Gallio. The moment he touched the vines, it was a case of ‘Once let into pasture, I went for my food’ (104.6), and recovery of his self (full concentration on study). This letter cements the equation which condenses ‘his health’ into ‘his hearth’ (salutis suae ∼ domum tuam, 104.10 ∼ 11). Denunciation of journey and travel blasts us into the next message, where Lucilius is told to heed his starting orders ‘as if getting a prescription for keeping good health on lucilius’ estate at Ardea' (105.1). Book 19 begins and ends its orientation with ‘greetings from seneca's’ ‘Nomentum estate again’ (110.1).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Morals and Villas in Seneca's LettersPlaces to Dwell, pp. 40 - 45Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004